Purpose of a Masquerade?

[Omegonthesane]

Due to much arguing with others (well, one guy) in main gaming group, decided this needed to be posited to the forums as a discussion point.

Say you have <insert modern fantasy setting here> on the drawing boards. You have a supernatural underground, and it wants to avoid any humans not actively participating in it (and even some of them) from noticing that The Truth Is Out There.
Questions this raises:
- How much does this add to your setting?
- What does this raise in terms of versimilitude?
- Complain/gush about examples handled well :D

To get the ball rolling, my own baseline feelings on the idea:

+ You don't have to write an extensive backplot of how the world is different even though it isn't so obviously changed on the surface that people expect that. There's a case to be made that all not-modern fantasy settings have to do this anyway, but as I said, they tend to be so unrealistic even on the surface that you expect explanation.
+ You can have a bunch of mundanes run into the supernatural as a campaign concept.
+ You have what amounts to a teeming mass of mooks to push around. Whether you bash them for being ignorant or for being humans is a matter of taste; the former doesn't aggravate me from seeing too much of it in my Gaiafag days.

- You need to work out how people haven't noticed. IRL, people have a massive ability to disavow improbable sensationalist "majik!" stories, but that's probably due to the lack of provable ones IRL. (There follows some examples, spoilered so people don't look at the length and think I have 4 minuses or something.) This leaves you with: your local supernatural underground is, well, underground, at least for now (e.g. Unknown Armies, Call of Cthulhu); you have so much power being thrown around in mind-wipes that it's hard to remind yourself that Joe Average has any meaning (e.g. In Nomine); or you simply have ridiculous faith in human self-delusion at the design stage (e.g. the entire Old WoD).
- You don't get to explore the consequences of magic being revealed to society in anything more than in-universe speculation. That sort of thing would actually have more appeal to the latent sci-fi git in me than "oh, the world's ruled by vampires behind the scenes and nobody notices"
- Depending on how your Masquerade's maintained, you'll probably spend ages writing backplot to justify it anyway, so there's potentially no effort saved or even additional effort required from such a solution.

[J.Gellert]

Due to much arguing with others (well, one guy) in main gaming group, decided this needed to be posited to the forums as a discussion point.

Oh noes! You have now unleashed it on a global scale!

- How much does this add to your setting?

Not much - consider that masquerades are backstories. It won't matter that much to the PCs, since they already know about the masquerade. Or they should, if they want to get the complete experience of the setting.

Where it's important is in how they go about doing things - usually meaning they cannot be too overt about massacre (and stuff). But it depends on how strictly the GM enforces this. It's obviously more important for mystery-oriented games, otherwise trigger-happy PCs may keep ruining the atmosphere.

- What does this raise in terms of versimilitude?

The benefit is you can use real world, or semi-real world settings and stuff your supernatural stuff in them. Have I mentioned I love Fantasy Noir? So YAY!

You need a moderately good explanation. You don't need to go into specific details. How is the masquerade maintained? Well - it's usually 50% "cleaning crews", 50% "people are idiots". Simple!

- Complain/gush about examples handled well :D

We live in the age of cell-phone cameras; Screw-ups ain't tolerated.

~ Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

[Omegonthesane]

*facepalm* I managed to miss the thing that gets me irritated about a wrongly applied Masquerade, and the remaining question that arises: why are the supernatural things hiding?

Unless they're ridiculously powerful, this is actually fairly reasonably easy to answer - humans are stupid and have a long history of banding to persecute someone who's different enough to possibly pose a threat, so unless you're so absurdly hardcore that no realistic number of well trained, well motivated, and possibly even well equipped humans can pose a threat to your supernatural underground, you have that much reason to hide.

This becomes an issue if you need more than a cursory glance to see that this is the case (oWoD; I'd need to delve into it far more than I care to to be able to back up claims that the vampires are actually weak enough for humans to pose a real threat, let alone the other factions), or if more than a cursory glance shows this is not the case (In Nomine, if you go by mechanics. Spoilered tangent follows.) It's set up so your body hits increase quadratically with relation to your Strength & Corporeal Forces [think physical stats], which angels & demons tend to have more of than humans. Combine with some Dodge skill and a protective spell and it's fairly trivial to make someone who by the rules exactly as written will laugh off a direct hit from a tank shell. As far as I'm concerned this is a flaw in the system's ability to portray the world it claims to portray rather than an intended feature of the world.

The latter case does have a solution, but it is still a query that needs answering if you want your Masquerade.

[Frozen_Feet]

- How much does this add to your setting?
If the masquerade isn't blown for the PCs, it doesn't add anything (see below). If it is, it adds about as much as you want it to. How much depends on what exactly is and isn't true, and how influential it becomes to the life of the PCs. It's possible for the masquerade to detract from the game as well if it's too prevalent - there should still be "normal life" that doesn't have anything to do with it. If the supernatural becomes everything, you're wasting much potential of having modern fantasy in the first place.


- What does this raise in terms of versimilitude?

Interistingly enough, it might not detract from verisimilitude at all. Ever heard of ghosts? UFOs? Vampires? Dragons? Exactly. If the supernatural bears even a passing resemblance to known myths and legends, the masquerade might even add to verisimilitude, as odd as that might sound.

But to be done well, this still requires for supernatural to be rare. It can't be everywhere, otherwise there would be no room for doubt. At its core, it boils down to a question of faith, not evidence. Most people will never have first-hand experience with majority of scientific data. Think for a moment - have you ever, personally, seen a kangaroo, a pistol shrimp or some other exotic animal? Yet you think they're real. Why is that?

Now, think of any critter that's hiding underneath your masquerade. If it corresponds with any existing myth, chances are you could find almost as many notations of it as of any real animal. So why would that creature be thought of as unreal?


- Complain/gush about examples handled well :D


I haven't personally read or seen any examples that really go and dwell into the implications of such masquerade. Which is a shame, since it's actually pretty ubiquitous element all across fantasy. But most of the time, it's there just to provide a cheap starting point for the adventure, and isn't really explored. One very egrerious example: Bleach. The premise of the setting is based around psychopomps ferrying souls of the dead to afterlife, relieving Hungry Ghosts of their burdens and keeping this as a secret from the mortals. But why they do this, and all the religious implications there of... yeah, shouldn't really expect a Shounen Action Adventure to touch those, eh? If you know enough of buddhist worldview, it makes certain degree of sense, but without that knowledge (like most western viewers are, I surmise), it's really obscure setting. A quaqmire of wasted potential, really.

On the other side, my favorite masquerades would be Matrix, Men in Black and Harry Potter. Especially Men in Black. Despite being a comedy, it has loads of great details. For example, many modern inventions are reverse-engineered from alien tech (microwaves and DVDs, for example), so it's clear they don't exist in a vacuum. Another great one is how K picks up a tabloid to get a trail. When J questions this, K remark "by all rights, stick with New York Times. They get it right sometimes." Finally, there's L, as a worker in the mortuary. and her remarks how she "knew it!" just before K erases her memory again - it's implied they have to do this every other sunday, practically.


*facepalm* I managed to miss the thing that gets me irritated about a wrongly applied Masquerade, and the remaining question that arises: why are the supernatural things hiding?


Most obvious answer: ethical concerns. Whatever their job is, it's not washing the laundry of humanity (etc. etc.), and using their powers for such is highly frowned upon.

Another: convenience. This is true for the MIB, for example. Earth is under the threat of destruction every other day - letting that spill into general populace would just cause mass panic, which would make everyone's life a living hell. Humans are animals, so it's best to keep from dying as such. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DyingLikeAnimals)

Then there's the one you already tackled: fear. The supernatural are vaning and few, so the bigotry of humans poses real, existential threat for them. Artemis Fowl books are a good example. When you think of it, it's the reason why you rarely see real wild animals either - they know humans are bad news, so they hide. Simple as that.

[Ranos]

Yeah, it mostly allows you to have a setting that is familiar, as close as possible to the "real world". I don't think we see the idea of the masquerade too much in non-modern settings.

It works pretty well in Dresden Files, where humans really are the sleeping giants. Pure mortals can still kick supernatural ass with enough training and prep time and when the humans actually get involved in supernatural events, every super knows sh*t just got real. Course, it isn't much of a masquerade since they basically took option 3 where humanity just deludes itself.

[Tiki Snakes]

I thought from the title, that this would be able the other type of Masquerade. Oh well.

Dramatically speaking, part of me thinks that the only point of a Masquerade in such a situation, especially if it has been successful in obscuring the existence of interesting and/or terrifying things for thousands of years, is for it to be horribly, irrevocably broken in play.

[Yuki Akuma]

In the paraphrased words of Joanne "The K Doesn't Stand For Anything" Rowling, "in a fight between a wizard with a wand and a muggle with a shotgun, the muggle would win".

[Tiki Snakes]

In the paraphrased words of Joanne "The K Doesn't Stand For Anything" Rowling, "in a fight between a wizard with a wand and a muggle with a shotgun, the muggle would win".

Which if you think about it does make a lot of the drama in the books a little less...dramatic.

If the Wizarding world weren't some kind of Illegal state-within-a-state quietly avoiding their taxes and withholding the many genuinely beneficial uses of magic from mundane society purely out of some kind of contempt, they could simply have called in the SAS the moment the whole Death Eater cult thing started being a problem. Voldy wouldn't even have outlived Thatcher's political career.

[Kurald Galain]

*facepalm* I managed to miss the thing that gets me irritated about a wrongly applied Masquerade, and the remaining question that arises: why are the supernatural things hiding?

For a good example, look up the Gehenna book, i.e. the very last book ever of Vampire The Masquerade. It contains several scenarios for the end of the world, one of which starts with the ubiquity of cameras and cellphones causing the Masquerade to break down. As the name suggests, this does not end well. It starts with vampires and humans "peacefully" coexisting for a little while after the truth is out, but goes down the drain quickly.

[Reluctance]

As a story construct, it allows the world to seem at least remotely similar to ours. A modern world with open supernaturals is going to be a lot trickier to pull off, both in terms of relatability and having a believable backstory.

As a game construct, it allows PCs to have really cool powers while keeping them from running too rampant. Sure, you can toss cars around. If you're too cavalier about it, somebody who can throw tanks around will have some very cross words for you.

As an in-world construct, it's actually trickiest. If the masquerade started back when humanity was still huddling in their dark ages huts, you have to ask what started it. If the masquerade started when humans were becoming decently dangerous, you have to ask how the supernaturals were able to so cleanly mask their existence. I've seen a few good explanations, but for the most part I let it slide and suspend disbelief.

[Ranos]

As an in-world construct, it's actually trickiest. If the masquerade started back when humanity was still huddling in their dark ages huts, you have to ask what started it. If the masquerade started when humans were becoming decently dangerous, you have to ask how the supernaturals were able to so cleanly mask their existence. I've seen a few good explanations, but for the most part I let it slide and suspend disbelief.

It works pretty well, actually. The dark ages, had witch hunts and all sorts of widely believed superstitions... It's not hard to imagine that this is around the time where supers went in hiding until century after century, the belief in their existence started to fade.

[KillianHawkeye]

Relevant discussion is relevant. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197507)

[SlyGuyMcFly]

A masquerade makes <insert modern fantasy setting here> possible in the first place. A modern fantasy world without a masquerade would, I think, not resemble the modern world we live in much at all.

It'd be like, I dunno, trying to make a cyberpunk setting without world-spanning faceless megacorps. It just wouldn't be cyberpunk any more.

[oxybe]

Questions this raises:
- How much does this add to your setting?
- What does this raise in terms of versimilitude?
- Complain/gush about examples handled well :D

1 - depends on the campaign really.

you can have this wonderful masquerade but unless the PCs get to interact with it, you're doing a lot of extra work for very little in return.

if i'm playing in a mortal WoD game and my character has no knowledge that a shadowy group of vampires are the real power behind the city's government... it doesn't really affect him. his daily life is going to be business as usual since the entire point of the masquerade is to not be known to the general public.

Even Human brought up the "faceless megacorp", but this isn't quite masquerade level. everyone knows about the faceless megacorp. while not everyone knows the exact details of what it's tendrils are into, it's presence is known.

for an example in a game i've been playing a lot of since my PC broke down: Saint's Row 2. Ultor Megacorp is a presence that has surfaced in power since the first game and you can easily see it's influence in the city, with about a sixth of Stillwater effectively being Ultor's territory, they have their own personal army to keep the peace and their own radio station.

their presence is known. their exact implications in the game's world is not fully known however until later in the game.

the Masquerade, however, is something Joe Commoner does not know about. it would be like if there is some sort of secret illuminati behind Ultor, the Sons of Samedi, the Ronin & the Brotherhood and controlling all 4 and their interactions.

so really, unless something happens to draw attention to these vampires, illuminati or whatever, a PC would never know of it.

what you really need to do is make the masquerade a central aspect to the campaign. how it affects the setting will vary: is it localized to a small city? a large one? a metropolis? a province? the country? continent? world? universe?

but no matter how far-reaching it is, unless your campaign focuses on it, if it's supposed to be pulled off well by the NPCs, the PCs will never know about it.

2- verisimilitude

wrong word i would say. the entire point of the masquerade is that it is something that goes against what the muggles believe is real. it's generally something so widely believes as unbelievable that it needs to be hidden.

vampires that control the political aspects of everyday life, werewolves that protect the mortal world from unknown horrors, inhuman constructs that hide among the masses, an illuminati that secretly controls the economy, the real bogeymen that go bump in the night, etc...

a human, alone, is not much danger. but there are a lot of us. billions of us. millions in the larger cities and even tens of thousands in the smaller ones. and while we do have our differences, we can mobilize quickly if feel the need to. and should we be armed when we do so, we are VERY dangerous.

this is why a lot of those masquerades are "hidden" each individual is VERY powerful by themselves, and even much stronger in a group, but when your group is 100 VS 100 000... the odds are against you, even if each individual is as a strong as 100 humans.

if anything the point of the masquerade is not to keep verisimilitude on the part of the players, but the NPCs. as long as everything seems real to them, they'll go along on their business.

3- i don't really have examples i can gush about. the masquerade is a bit of a silly concept, in that there is a supposedly a powerful "second world" that the general populace has no clue even exists.

there are a lot of things the common man doesn't know the specific details about: the going-ons of the mafia/triad/yakuza/organized crime, what goes on inside the big military bases, etc... but we don't deny these things actually exist and that they do have some effect on our lives.

a lot of the time it's really just a romanticized ideal that is cool to think about in a "what if" scenario but a lot of it requires application of Phlebotinum (aka Handwavium) and willing suspension of disbelief until it "works".

[J.Gellert]

there are a lot of things the common man doesn't know the specific details about: the going-ons of the mafia/triad/yakuza/organized crime, what goes on inside the big military bases, etc... but we don't deny these things actually exist and that they do have some effect on our lives.

But if a masquerade did exist, we wouldn't know about it, or its effect on our lives...

...dun dun DUNNN! (http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/088/5/1/realization_demotivational_by_supersmylyz-d3cs17e.jpg)

[Frozen_Feet]

Not quite. We wouldn't have proof of it's existence. It's possible to know about, and believe in, a thing you have no proof of. The key for the masquarade is to create a situation where their existence is so unbelievable that anecdotal evidence will not make enough people interested to actually look into the issue.

[Bogardan_Mage]

A masquerade makes <insert modern fantasy setting here> possible in the first place. A modern fantasy world without a masquerade would, I think, not resemble the modern world we live in much at all.
I disagree. If you can quietly brush away the the subtle contradictions inherent in a masquerade, you can quietly brush away the "why did technological and social progress happen in exactly the same way if everyone knew about magic" questions. And if the supernatural is a newcomer to the world (which could be the result of a masquerade ending, but could just as easily be an enforced absence: magic is a natural force that waxes and wanes, and it's been waning for most of modern history) you don't even need to do that.

For my own Urban Fantasy setting, my approach is that it's made for people from the real world, and what with all the quantum probabilities and such any specific world is going to be an inherently arbitrary choice, so it might as well be one that resembles the real world's history. And if you're really worried about some specific detail, it's probably literally true that A Wizard Did It.

[Morquard]

*facepalm* I managed to miss the thing that gets me irritated about a wrongly applied Masquerade, and the remaining question that arises: why are the supernatural things hiding?
I think in the Vampire the Requiem book (or is it still from Masquerade? Or maybe both) it says basicly that in the dark ages the Inquisition came very close to wiping out the vampire population of europe, and if you imagine now what 7 billion people armed with shotguns, napalm, spy satelites, nightvision goggles, body heat sensors, intelligence agencies and whatever else could to do them instead of just a couple of thousands back then... you'll see why the vampires think the Masquerade is a good idea.

Most supernaturals are stronger than humans in a one on one fight, but they're usually outnumbered 1000:1 or worse. And they often have a weakness. You don't hunt vampires in the night, you do it during the day when they're sleeping and you can kill them before they even realise they got attacked. So best if noone knows they exist.

There will always be the few that know or believe. But they're alone, and often laughed at by their peers, who won't believe them. And if they become too great a threat, they get dealt with silently.

[Weezer]

In a setting where the supernaturals completely overshadow normal humanity, the masquerade would be kept up because it's convinient. It stops irritating human rebellions against the supernatural tyranny from popping up and makes subtle but complete control of the world easier. Alternatively the supernaturals are so powerful that they don't care either way about humanity and the masquerade is maintained by either a human organization or a few altruistic supernaturals that want to keep humanity protected through obscurity.

If the supernaturals are weaker than humanity as a whole then it makes sense that they would want to hide. Throughout history mankind has oppressed, terrorized and occasionally worked to eliminate the Other. The Other was defined by incredibly arbitrary and inane things from gender to culture to ethnicity to race, if a race of beings that lived off of drinking blood was suddenly revealed to the world how long would it be until mobs armed with crucifixes, garlic and torches shows up at their door? Even a type of "Black Ribboner" movement wouldn't be sufficient, people are too bigoted, too ignorant and too swayed by emotions to pay attention to that kind of distinction.

[Kyuu Himura]

To quote one of the first sessions of my manga setting:

Supernatural warrior PC: Why do you keep following me??
Scientist PC: I wouldn't if you didn't keep avoiding me.
SWPC: Take a freaking hint!! I don't want you around!!
SPC: Is this some sort of "not endangering civilians policy"?? well, I don't fell endangered around you Mr. Tough guy.
SWPC: It's not, it's because you're a Scientist.
SPC: what??
SWPC: You're a Scientist, you're following me to find out the origin of my powers. This has happened before, it has happened to others, it has happened to some friends of mine. People like you put people like me in labs and fill us with tubes, drugs and electrodes, spare me that crap, I have lives to save.


So, to put it simple, Supernatural good duys don't wanna be treated like they treat Mutants in the Marvel Universe, and they (more often than not) don't wanna be pushed into doing some government's dirty job (It happened in Angel once, can happen to anyone). Also, now that we bring Angel into discussion, in the comics, he goes public for a number of reasons out of his control, and people keep treating him like some sort of celebrity and getting in the way when he fights.... yeah, no thanks.
Supernatural bad guys have a ton of reasons to not liking the idea of going public, first, not being visible makes it safer for you (not only it is less likely that Joe Average finds out who you are, it makes it less likely that heroes find out, which is cool), second, if you have some way of saying you and your minions are not supernatural, when the heroes go super on you, you can point out to them and get the torches ready for witch hunt, and so there are other number of reasons, fear not being the least.

[Eric Tolle]

I disagree. If you can quietly brush away the the subtle contradictions inherent in a masquerade, you can quietly brush away the "why did technological and social progress happen in exactly the same way if everyone knew about magic" questions.

Not quite; public knowledge of the supernatural would raise a whole tangle of legal, ethical, and social questions regarding the interactions of the supernatural and the mundane. For example, what laws and precautions are in place regarding mind control in public contracts? Are humans and supernaturals allowed to marry? How about property ownership? Can someone retain ownership of their property for eternity by becoming a vampire in old age? If so, how does society deal with inheritance becoming obsolete? What's the legal ramifications of summoning demons and spirits? What effect on religion would the proof of life after death and spiritual realms have? What effect would the supernatural have on science, philosophy,

It's possible to do a story dealing with these issues- Dean Koontz's "The Haunted Earth" and Poul Anderson's "Operation Chaos" touched on these issues, and the website "Law and the Multiverse" has taken a more comprehensive look at some of the legalities involved. But in an rpg context, better be prepared to do at least as much background work as was involved with Shadowrun, or be ready to make up a lot of stuff off the cuff. And lord help you of you get a lawyer in your group like I had in mine.

That's one of the advantages of a Masquerade; since mortal institutions are generally unaware of the supernatural, than you don't have to worry about the tax status of ghosts, or a jurisdiction argument between the ACLU and the SPCA regarding the status of werewolves.

[stainboy]

I'm gonna propose an additional minus:

- Your PCs can destroy an important premise of your setting at any time, and your setting doesn't have a plan to deal with that.


If you play enough Vampire, your PCs will eventually break the Masquerade in a big flagrant way. They'll pop 5 Celerity in front of a bunch of cops or kill some szlachta and forget to destroy the bodies or just fail a roll and frenzy in public. You can kill off the PCs, which is what the setting suggests would happen, but that kinda sucks. You can handwave it or have the witnesses "disappear" or have no one believe them, but then the PCs learn that breaking the Masquerade isn't as big a deal as the books make it out to be. Or you can have the Masquerade actually break and keep playing.

Now you're not playing Vampire: the Masquerade, you're playing Vampire: the OMG Vampires Are Totally Real. That's fine, that could be fun. But you'd pretty much have to wing it and the setting assumes you don't let it happen.

[Bogardan_Mage]

Not quite; public knowledge of the supernatural would raise a whole tangle of legal, ethical, and social questions regarding the interactions of the supernatural and the mundane. For example, what laws and precautions are in place regarding mind control in public contracts? Are humans and supernaturals allowed to marry? How about property ownership? Can someone retain ownership of their property for eternity by becoming a vampire in old age? If so, how does society deal with inheritance becoming obsolete? What's the legal ramifications of summoning demons and spirits? What effect on religion would the proof of life after death and spiritual realms have? What effect would the supernatural have on science, philosophy,

It's possible to do a story dealing with these issues- Dean Koontz's "The Haunted Earth" and Poul Anderson's "Operation Chaos" touched on these issues, and the website "Law and the Multiverse" has taken a more comprehensive look at some of the legalities involved. But in an rpg context, better be prepared to do at least as much background work as was involved with Shadowrun, or be ready to make up a lot of stuff off the cuff. And lord help you of you get a lawyer in your group like I had in mine.

That's one of the advantages of a Masquerade; since mortal institutions are generally unaware of the supernatural, than you don't have to worry about the tax status of ghosts, or a jurisdiction argument between the ACLU and the SPCA regarding the status of werewolves.
All of these things fall into one of two categories:

a) Part of the fun, i.e. elements added to the setting as a logical extension of adding the supernatural. They don't make the world any less recognisable (which, you'll recall, is what I responded to) and in many ways they enhance the feel of Urban Fantasy (much like faceless megacorps to Cyberpunk)
b) Exactly the things I was talking about casually brushing to the side. Religion either becomes a battleground for physical gods or concerns things still not revealed (there are always mysteries, even, nay, especially in fantasy). Science and magic work in tandem to create something more or less analogous to modern technology (because, as I believe I adequately explained earlier, why not?) if they're not completely incompatible.

Ignore b) and explore a) in great detail. How is either one a problem?

[Morquard]

All of these things fall into one of two categories:

a) Part of the fun, i.e. elements added to the setting as a logical extension of adding the supernatural. They don't make the world any less recognisable (which, you'll recall, is what I responded to) and in many ways they enhance the feel of Urban Fantasy (much like faceless megacorps to Cyberpunk)
b) Exactly the things I was talking about casually brushing to the side. Religion either becomes a battleground for physical gods or concerns things still not revealed (there are always mysteries, even, nay, especially in fantasy). Science and magic work in tandem to create something more or less analogous to modern technology (because, as I believe I adequately explained earlier, why not?) if they're not completely incompatible.

Ignore b) and explore a) in great detail. How is either one a problem?
Let's assume the Masquerade never existed in the first place, or been broken for a long time, so it would actually have a chance to influence the world.

Why build bigger tanks and weapons if all it takes is one guy raising a hand to level an entire city? Why invent planes if all it takes is one guy snapping a finger and a whole bunch of people just got teleported halfway across the globe?

Sure it depends on how powerful the magic users are, but you can apply this to nearly every powerlevel. If the world with magic is practically the same as without, than the magic can't really be that powerful to start with. If it was, the world would be different.

There's also another reason for the Masquerade:
Supernaturals often tend to hide from one another just as much or even more than from humans. So they just hide from everyone. If they don't or make a mistake someone more powerful comes along and eats them.

I admit, upholding a Masquerade gets more and more complicated and hard the more survailance is deployed, and with everyone running around with a cellphone camera etc. Doesn't mean it doesn't make sense for them to still try.

[Frozen_Feet]

Why build bigger tanks and weapons if all it takes is one guy raising a hand to level an entire city? Why invent planes if all it takes is one guy snapping a finger and a whole bunch of people just got teleported halfway across the globe?


Answer: ignorance of means. Either guys who invented those had no knowledge of the magical solution, or had no access to it. Or maybe, you know, they wanted to replicate the effects despite that. "Reality imitates fiction" and all that jazz. "Hey, those witches can fly, so why not us???"

[Bogardan_Mage]

Let's assume the Masquerade never existed in the first place, or been broken for a long time, so it would actually have a chance to influence the world.

Why build bigger tanks and weapons if all it takes is one guy raising a hand to level an entire city? Why invent planes if all it takes is one guy snapping a finger and a whole bunch of people just got teleported halfway across the globe?

Sure it depends on how powerful the magic users are, but you can apply this to nearly every powerlevel. If the world with magic is practically the same as without, than the magic can't really be that powerful to start with. If it was, the world would be different.
Yes, it is necessary for magic to be limited for my proposal to work. Not necessarily limited in power, as Frozen_Feet points out, it could easily be limited in ability. Maybe one guy can teleport across the globe at the snap of his fingers, but where does that leave the rest of us?

Furthurmore, if we take it as given that magic works in the way you describe (a fairly big assumption), where does that leave the masquerade? If a wizard is capable of levelling a city with a thought, why bother with a masquerade at all? Conquer the world, and to hell with secrecy! The only thing keeping him in check is the idea that his fellow wizards would all agree to act against their own obvious interest (even those who don't care to rule the world would surely prefer openess and recognition). Anyway, the difficulties of high-powered magic in a masquerade have already been discussed extensively.

So yes, I agree, magic can't be that powerful to start with. If it was, there would never have been a masquerade in the first place. Or, you can suspend disbelief and say that things turned out more or less the same even though it was monumentally unlikely that they would do so. You're going to have to do that if you've got a masquerade anyway.

[Morty]

Answer: ignorance of means. Either guys who invented those had no knowledge of the magical solution, or had no access to it. Or maybe, you know, they wanted to replicate the effects despite that. "Reality imitates fiction" and all that jazz. "Hey, those witches can fly, so why not us???"

Yeah, this. In a world with magic, technology would be the Muggles' way of breaking the magic-users' monopoly on things like large-scale weaons, transport et cetera.

[The Big Dice]

If you play enough Vampire, your PCs will eventually break the Masquerade in a big flagrant way. They'll pop 5 Celerity in front of a bunch of cops or kill some szlachta and forget to destroy the bodies or just fail a roll and frenzy in public. You can kill off the PCs, which is what the setting suggests would happen, but that kinda sucks. You can handwave it or have the witnesses "disappear" or have no one believe them, but then the PCs learn that breaking the Masquerade isn't as big a deal as the books make it out to be. Or you can have the Masquerade actually break and keep playing.
It becomes a big deal when it happens regularly. Though if it happens at all, PCs should be punished appropriately and in character (in character actions, in character consequences) for their transgressions.

And in the case of Vampire, there are the means to ensure cover ups are both thorough and convincing enough. Or convincing enough that it all just looks like either hoaxers playing games or nutjobs jumping at shadows again.

[Yukitsu]

My favourite variant of this, is one where all of the groups are pretending to be humans to avoid being picked on by humans, but where there are no humans. Just different factions of things pretending to be humans.

[Arbane]

My favourite variant of this, is one where all of the groups are pretending to be humans to avoid being picked on by humans, but where there are no humans. Just different factions of things pretending to be humans.

The old World of Darkness, then? :smallbiggrin: